


Of Starlight

by papergardener



Category: Watership Down - Richard Adams
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Diversion from Canon, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28066296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papergardener/pseuds/papergardener
Summary: Where Hazel goes at the end of his life. There is more beyond death, and he learns that he may still have a job to do.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Of Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> When I first read this not long ago, I thought it was El-Ahrairah who came to Hazel at the end, and decided to keep that, and follow more closely the characterizations of the legends.
> 
> Wanted to clear the confusion if anyone is coming from the TV series (or just interpreted differently when reading, which is valid).
> 
> I missed out on reading this in school and very glad I decided to give it a go, I loved this book and it's mythology and storytelling, and so this is my small tribute.

As they ran, all too lightly, through the heather and grass upon the down, Hazel stole glances to the rabbit at his side.

The Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Lord El-Ahrairah, who has asked him to join his Owsla.

Hazel knew what had happened, although at times he wondered if it was a dream and he might awake again in his burrow with the sentry at the door. He wondered, stopped, and looked back.

Then, something dark overcame him. A black shadow curled over his body, his mind, pressing like fog before it flickered away as El-Ahrairah ran back to him as if chasing it. But the glancing sense was enough, and it nearly made Hazel scatter with terror, his body freezing cold. For some moments he lay there, trembling.

“That is my friend,” said El-Ahrairah, coming alongside him before lifting his head to gaze out, apparently beyond the reach of sight, for the shadow was gone. “And now, yours as well.”

Hazel stared wide-eyed as he slowly regained his senses. It was a similar startling feel like on the night of the great escape from the farm, when a bright light came upon him and blinded him. But this was not something that would stop if he merely closed his eyes. A friend? Was he to call the Black Rabbit of Inlé his friend, was that what his life was to become? Or could it be called life?

It was rather puzzling. Had he escaped death, then? Or was this something else?

“Come along,” said El-Ahrairah. “There is a distance yet.”

And so they raced along, through the down and the fields, and then ran into the sky, climbing the scented winds of the evening flowers, and their paws trailed wisps of fog and cloud, and the night sky grew impossibly clear.

The last thing he recalled, as he traveled higher over his home of Watership Down, was the smell of primrose in bloom, before they were amongst the stars, and the entire world was peaceful night, and seemed all that it should be. On they ran in endless time, until at last Lord El-Ahrairah stopped before rising on his haunches, his ears high and relaxed.

“Welcome to my Owsla, Hazel.”

Then, from the darkness, he saw many great rabbits with shining fur like the sun through mist, and eyes that flashed like the moon on water. They reminded him of the large, beautiful rabbits of Cowslip’s warren, only greater, more beautiful, and more terrible. He felt small besides them, and his wounded leg ached, although he had not felt it on their long journey. Surely they were all faster and stronger than him. Smarter, cleverer, more cunning, and far more worthy.

One came forward, left ear notched and torn, and smiled. “It’s good to finally meet you, Hazel,” she said. “We’ve heard many wonderful things.”

“We were wondering when you might show,” another doe said in a kindly manner.

“I hope you’re a decent storyteller. Not many of us can say that they rode in a hrududil!” one rabbit said, grinning.

“Speak for yourself,” replied another.

“Not all of us were once hutch rabbits,” a tan buck said, before getting cuffed.

They seemed a friendly group, and not at all like the demanding, belligerent Owsla of his youth in Sandleford, nor like the militaristic, brutal soldiers of General Woundwort. Still, Hazel couldn’t understand why he was there. What was to become of him among such a worthy group?

“It’s true, though, we have heard stories about you and your warren,” a buck said, tall with long legs and a dark streak along his back.

“My warren?” Hazel said, hardly comprehending, still rather dazed.

In an instant—sharp and bright—he missed his warren terribly. His mate Hyzenthlay and his brother Fiver, and Bigwig and Blackberry and all the rest, even though many had already passed long before. He wondered if he had made a mistake in leaving, and anguish clutched tight around him.

“What will happen to it?” he said, looking back as if he might see it through the dark and fog.

“Don't despair,” El-Arairah said, who had not left his side. “You will always remain with your warren, and they shall always be with you. For as long as you are willing. It is, after all, your choice."

Hazel did not quite understand yet, but he would. If he had wished he could have gone to rest like many others, but he had a duty to his warren. To guide and to protect for as long as it may exist.

And so Hazel-rah joined the great Oswla in the sky.

The rabbits of Watership Down would, for many generations, tell the stories of the clever El-Ahrairah and his friends. They would say that he had lived upon the very land they did, and had performed great feats of magic and cleverness, and was a good, brave, and selfless leader. Eventually, the lives of Hazel and Fiver and Bigwig faded from memory and even from the stories, and so they too were allowed to rest.

But when one died, it was not always the Black Rabbit that took them, but sometimes a rather ordinary looking rabbit with a ghost of a limp.

* * *

A doe shivers, watching as a fox devours her body.

She is there, and she is not, and far too afraid to move or even cry out again. A new awareness tells her that it is futile now and so she is quiet, but beyond that there is only a vague, terrible understanding of what has happened.

A black shadow seems to press over her, lingering, almost visible in the corner of her eyes and nearly like a rabbit. This, too, makes her afraid. There is a sense of cold far apart from the chilly March evening, and a darkness, deeper and greater than a moonless night, keeps her immobile. She imagines teeth white as bone, and eyes red as blood, and she watches the teeth and the blood and the dark fur of the fox.

Then there comes a new sound, very slight, and yet she cannot look away from her own torn body, and cannot move.

“Hello there,” says the voice, and it can not be the Black Rabbit of Inlé, it is too warm and kind. The black shadow flickers then and vanishes, as does the heavy fear that had pressed upon her.

She twitches her head and sees a rabbit close by. The drizzling rain runs right through him and his paws do not touch the sodden grass. She does not immediately fear him, as she might have, but then the terror shudders again, and that growing sense that she is no longer alive, and so she must be dead.

“Are you the Black Rabbit,” she whispers, her claws splaying wide.

“No,” he says, smiling. “Although the Black Rabbit is a friend. I have come to bring you away, if you are ready.”

She does not answer but gazes at him, and then back at her body. The mouth is slightly open, the eyes closed, and the fox pulls at her leg, the bones snapping. She shrinks away, and imagines that sharp pain.

“Best to come over here a little,” the stranger says gently, hopping towards a patch of campion flowers, bright even on such a gray day.

She follows him, away from the sounds, but can’t help but glance back. It is hard to leave it all behind. Her body, her life. Her family and her kittens, although they are not so young anymore. They would survive without her. It is a sad realization, even as it is a comfort.

Beside her, the strange rabbit raises his head, ears high and twisting towards the warren, not far from where they are, and there is a sense of longing, and also of warmth and strength that seemed to leech into herself. He is strangely familiar, yet she cannot decide why.

Perhaps it was because he felt like home.

“Do I know you?” she asks.

“No,” the stranger says, something of sorrow in his voice, but also pride. “But this is my warren. Many years before.”

She considers this, for it was easier to consider than the rest. The strange figure is certainly not their leader, nor the one before. No, this reaches deeper than that. “Were you a chief rabbit here?” she asks.

“I was.” The rabbit settled closer. “I helped to found this warren, and there’s a great story there if you’d like to hear it. I’m not as good as some of our old storytellers, but I was with the rabbits who made this burrow, Fiver and Bigwig and Dandelion and the rest. All good rabbits, all now at rest.”

There’s a shuffle behind her and she turns in time see the fox take the rest of her body in his mouth and lope away, the white-tipped tail disappearing into the bushes.

“It’s all right,” the rabbit says gently. “It’s hard, of course, but it gets easier. You don’t need it anymore.”

He’s right. It doesn't hurt as much as it perhaps should have. Some strength has returned to her, along with a growing sense of peace. After that she does not think again of the fox and the body that is no longer her own. She noses the grass shoots and newly green plants, but does not dare to eat them lest she can’t.

Was she now going to rest? Like the many other rabbits before her? She wonders.

She also wonders, briefly, is this was the Prince of Rabbits himself, Lord El-Ahrairah. Prince of a Thousand Enemies. Some stories told that he had founded their warren on Watership Down after a long journey through dangerous lands. There were stories that he had escaped an enchanted warren who wore shining collars about their necks, and tricked a dog against his enemies, and befriended a rabbit who turned into a great white bird to protect them. Could this be the same great Prince? But surely those are just stories.

She looks at him again, closer. He seems quite ordinary, and his ears do not glow silver nor shine faintly of starlight like the legends.

But it does not matter, in the end. She is grateful not to make this journey alone, wherever it may lead.

At last, with a last long look about her home, she stretches her legs and rises. “I’m ready.”

“Good. It is a long journey, but it won’t take long.”

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“Beyond,” he says simply.

The first star of evening blinks in the darkening sky as they run. The sky seems to open up before them in a strange, wondrous way. The familiar world grows distant, the rain falling quiet, and she does not feel the cold or the wet. There is no pain. She finds she is beyond those things. Beyond ache and fatigue, and beyond fear and despair.

Beyond life, and so this is death.

 _Beyond,_ he had told her. When she looks again, there is starlight in his eyes.


End file.
